Making A Map From Health to Heart Disease and Back Again Julie A. Kohlhaas ISBN: 0-9710988-9-1 US $15.95

Author Julie Kohlhaas found out the hard way what an important role family history plays in heart disease, as documented in her new book, MAKING A MAP. With low cholesterol and blood pressure, a vegetarian diet, and a low-stress (retired), active lifestyle, she thought that at age 52 she was immune to heart disease. Her family history, however, dictated otherwise: a father, two uncles and two brothers with heart disease.

Kohlhaas also discovered the differences between how men and women experience the symptoms of heart disease. She documents the winter of travel in the Southwest that preceded her sudden life-flight to Phoenix Memorial Hospital for triple bypass surgery, 1,500 miles away from her home in Michigan. Through her own vivid rendering of events, personal journal reflections, and e-mail correspondence with other RV friends, she chronicles the six days in the hospital, rehabilitation in both Arizona and Michigan, the emotional roller coaster of self-discovery, and the eventual gratitude for difficult lessons learned.

Readers of MAKING A MAP are invited to share in the life-changing journey the author and her husband experienced when a health crisis on the road catapulted them into the unfamiliar territory of heart disease without a map. With the backdrop of an exhilarating and memorable trip in treasured American wilderness areas, a love of travel and learning, Kohlhaas' book about women and heart disease challenges readers by:

• Portraying honestly her own experiences before, during, and after heart surgery
• Posing questions for other women as they begin to research basic information about heart disease, strategies for prevention of disabling attacks, and practical ways to maintain heart health
• Describing the internal pilgrimage that her heart crisis and healing so richly precipitated
• Providing a map not only for how one might heal when crisis strikes, but also for how couples can set a course for maintaining a healthy quality of life as they approach and live retirement.

MAKING A MAP is an inspiring, informative book for those who care about health, personal growth, and enduring quality of life.

Making a Map is a penetrating collection of travel stories through the Southwest with an unexpected detour into health crisis. Through generous peeks into her private journal, Julie provides us with an elegantly simple roadmap to health and healing. The book is rich with personal travel photos, an extensive resource list and reliable information for prevention and recovery from a heart health crisis. A true gift for the human journey.

Meribeth Bolt, M.A.,
Exercise Physiology and HolisticHealth Care
Certified Health Education Specialist
President of Michigan Holistic Institute,
Grand Rapids, MI

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The reader who would enjoy this would probably be someone on an inner journey of their own. Your travel descriptions make it fit into the category of travel ( psychological and physical ) and spiritual search. People who would read this are those who would be interested in the genre of Gary Zukav's books . . . I feel a strong identity with you, wondering what I will learn next about you and about myself.

Char Kolon

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Making a Map was like having a long visit wih a close friend. I just devoured it. It was heart warming to travel around with the two of you, meet your friends and experience your highs and lows.

Dorothy Labert

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Seeing all the different emotions that I was going through put into words by someone else helped me to express to other people in my life exactly what I was going through. I would recommend this book for the patient, friends, loved ones, and all the people who provide rehabilitation for an individual dealing with heart disease.

Dan Kucerak

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Something about Making a Map made me want to keep reading it whenever I got a chance . . .

Margaret Miller

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I cried about your flight to Phoenix all by yourself and learning about the triple bypass surgery. I cannot begin to imagine how hard that was to be alone. I am taking seriously your concern about the heart. I now have two female cousins who have had bypass surgery in their early fifties. I have not had any chest pains, but I am planning to have my heart checked out this summer.

Mary Eisenmann

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Making a Map offers a wonderful model for healthy retirement, even when illness strikes!

Lynn Richards

Julie Kohlhaas

My roots are deep in southeastern Michigan agricultural soil where I was born and, except for six years on a farm in Traverse City, raised. I was married to my first love at nineteen to a boy on the other side of the block whose grandparents knew my grandparents. At age twenty-six, we moved to Africa when I was seven months pregnant with our third child where we were dorm parents and teachers on a campus built by nine missions just six kilometers outside Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Haile Selessie, the emperor, was deposed three months after we arrived, so living under a changing government in a third world country offered immediate and exciting lessons in world politics.

When we returned to the States two years later, I longed for just one more baby, after which I finished up a degree on full scholarship in Literature and Linguistics, writing and publishing poetry, short stories, and articles in my spare time while raising four children. The children's father and I separated and divorced after twenty years of marriage, flinging me out into the world in a series of jobs that built a colorful, if nomadic, resume:

• manager of a law firm in Ann Arbor, Michigan;
• manager of two restaurants in Salt Lake City, Utah;
• salesperson for a large transportation company based in Missoula and Kalispell, Montana;
• an engineering recruiter in Kalamazoo, Michigan

- - twelve years of making just enough to live on and helping four children graduate from college.

Then, . . . I met Kel (twelve years single, himself) in October of 1996. We were engaged in March, married in August, and retired the following June at age 50 to do what we both love--travel.     Look out for our R.V. . . . . . . I have always been a proponent of preventive health care by informing myself and trusting my intuition that I know my body best. Lots of varied activity has taken up a large part of my adult life: biking, hiking, tennis, kayaking, rollerblading, etc. I am fortunate, indeed, to have found a partner who not only shares my interests but who has enriched my life with new interests.

We now live on a two-acre paradise in a house Kel built in southwestern Michigan, a five minute walk from an inland lake and a half hour from Lake Michigan. I write, play with my four grandbabies, and travel as much as possible.

Price - $15.95
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